OLD HABITS DIE HARD, TO JUDGE BY the way Manchester City found themselves clinging on in stoppage time yesterday after dominating the previous 90 minutes, but their reinvention under the astute management of Stuart Pearce is suddenly threatening to reap serious dividends. Two goals from the rejuvenated Andrew Cole were scant reward for a wonderfully vibrant display, but the sight of his team in fourth place in the Premiership, behind Manchester United on goal difference, offered the remarkable prospect of City competing for a place in next season’s Champions League.

It is barely seven months since Pearce was put in charge of a City team that were in danger of dropping into the relegation zone under Kevin Keegan, but the change in mood and outlook is extraordinary. He acknowledges that their efforts to defy gravity are likely to be tested if and when Arsenal and Liverpool click into form, but there have been few better performances in the Premiership this season than this, one that should have made the game safe long before Bobby Zamora gave West Ham United hope with a well-taken goal in stoppage time.

To put City’s performance in context, this was the first time West Ham have been outclassed since their return to the top flight. Alan Pardew expressed disappointment with his players afterwards, in particular with their tendency to play themselves into trouble by being too keen to live up to their cavalier reputation, but his team are unlikely to encounter too many opponents in this kind of mood.

“It’s not doom and gloom,” he said. “It’s the first time we’ve lost away from home and we’re not going to get carried away by the fact that we put in a misguided performance today.”

If West Ham were misguided, City, as is their way under Pearce, carried out their manager’s instructions almost to the letter, forcing a high tempo that would have been unimaginable during the dark days of the Keegan regime. Roy Carroll’s goal was put under seige long before Cole beat him with an adroit finish in the eighteenth minute and it is no exaggeration to say that City might have scored six or seven had Darius Vassell and Kiki Musampa, both excellent in their approach work, matched their team-mate’s composure in front of goal.

Cole, with his Manchester United associations, had misgivings about joining City in the summer, just as many of the club’s supporters did about him, but increasingly their marriage of convenience looks like a match made in heaven. “It might have been difficult coming here, but my team-mates have been superb and so have the fans,” he said as he clutched the man of the match award, which he dedicated to his 10-year-old son.

The first of Cole’s double was a classic. After a clever turn on the halfway line, he sent Vassell running through the inside-left channel at Anton Ferdinand. Vassell hesitated before back-heeling the ball into Cole’s path, who checked his run before stroking a perfect right-foot shot that floated over Carroll into the far corner.

Cole’s second, in the 56th minute, was a more routine effort, a close-range tap-in after Musampa’s shot was saved by Carroll, but it showed a predatory instinct that few strikers in the Premiership these days can match. Already, only three months after his arrival on a free transfer from Fulham, City are talking about offering him an extension to his 12-month contract. “I think he wants to stay beyond this year,” Pearce said, “and if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s going to force our hand.”

Pearce said, not unreasonably, that the final scoreline flattered West Ham. Vassell and Musampa missed clear opportunities, while Paul Konchesky produced goalline clearances to deny Vassell and Nedum Onuoha. Such profligacy might have proved costly had the visiting team scored before the 91st minute, when Zamora took the ball around David James and finished smartly after a perceptive pass from Yossi Benayoun, but City’s penchant for self-destruction is not what it used to be and for that, as for so much else, they have Pearce to thank.